# Various Pets Alive and Dead

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/marina-lewycka/various-pets-alive-and-dead/9780141932484

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/marina-lewycka/various-pets-alive-and-dead/9780141932484.json

![Various Pets Alive and Dead](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/marina-lewycka/various-pets-alive-and-dead_978-01-4193-248-4.jpg?v=2026-04-23%2023%3A49%3A24)

- Book: [Various Pets Alive and Dead](https://www.bookquiver.com/marina-lewycka/various-pets-alive-and-dead) ([Various Pets Alive and Dead.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/marina-lewycka/various-pets-alive-and-dead.md))
- Authors: [Marina Lewycka](https://www.bookquiver.com/marina-lewycka)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-01-4193-248-4
- Published: 2012-03-01
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

Marcus and Doro were part of a commune from the late 1960s until the early 1990s: lentils, free love, spliffs, Left politics, cheesecloth blouses, sex, housework and cooking rotas, crochet, allotments. Their children have grown up rather different from them: primary schoolteacher Clara craves order and clean bathrooms, son Serge is pretending to his parents that he is still doing a Maths PhD at Cambridge, while in fact working making loadsa money in the City; while third child Oolie Anna, who has Downs Syndrome, is desperate to escape home and live on her own. Set half in Doncaster, half in London, this is a very funny riff on modern values, featuring hamsters, cockroaches, poodles, a Chicken and multiplying rabbits, told by Marina Lewycka in her unique and brilliant combination of irony, farce and wit.